Cary Clack: Uncle Phil didn't get the drop on 'Wild Bill'

Published 6:12 pm, Monday, October 3, 2011

Wednesday is a special day in the history of my family, although, I'm probably the only one who knows it. But 140 years ago Wednesday, one of our ancestors did something that has allowed him to forever be mentioned in some history books and biographies: He got himself shot. And killed. And not in a terribly heroic way.

On Oct. 5, 1871, famed gunman and lawman James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, then the sheriff of Abilene, notched his last killing in a gunfight. Uncle Phil take your star turn!

Hickok's victim was Philip Houston Coe, the uncle of my paternal great-grandmother. His father, Philip Haddox Coe, had left Georgia and come to Gonzales, where he would be shot in a saloon in 1852 while playing poker. The younger Coe, a gambler and brawler, and the gunman Ben Thompson followed the Texas cattle trail to Abilene where they opened a bar together called The Bulls Head Saloon. On the night of Oct. 5, Coe got a bit rowdy and started firing shots in the air. Reportedly, he and Hickok were already antagonistic toward one another because of a love triangle involving a woman. "Love triangle" may not be the appropriate term, since the woman was said to be one of ill-repute. (Although, to the best of my knowledge, she never was involved in a gunfight, so that makes her ill-repute not seem so ill).

When Hickok approached Coe, they fired at each other. Coe missed. Hickok didn't. Coe fell hard like the Dallas Cowboys in the second half of Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions. Hickok eventually drove the cowboys from Texas out of town, which, coincidentally, is what some fans in Dallas want to do with their Cowboys. (And while this has absolutely nothing to do with this column, let me say that I still believe in Tony Romo. There, I said it. What are you going to do, shoot me? Obviously, it's not as if that's an unusual fate for male members of my family.)

Unfortunately, Hickok also accidentally shot and killed his deputy. Coe lingered and didn't die until Oct. 9. Any reputable biography of Hickok mentions Coe and, at least when I was a child, there was a depiction of the shooting in a wax museum in Grand Prairie. When I visited that museum, a relative pointed to the depiction and said that was my uncle.

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"Wow!" I said with pride. "Wild Bill Hickok was my uncle?"

"Uh, no. The one getting shot is your uncle."

"But he's white."

"What difference does it make? So is Wild Bill Hickok."

"Yeah, but he's Wild Bill Hickok."

Coe's dad fathered at least one child with a slave woman. That son, Dan Coe, was my great-grandmother's daddy. I used to refer to Uncle Phil as the white sheep of the family but, c'mon, look at me. There were a few white sheep on both sides of my family. That's why I never found anything strange about the Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings story.

One other thing about Uncle Phil: Because he fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, I'm eligible to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The legacy I wish I'd inherited was some of the 16,000 acres his father owned. I would have been happy with just, say, 40 acres. And maybe a mule.

So to all my family I say, "Happy 140th Anniversary of Uncle Phil Coe Becoming the Last Person Killed by Wild Bill Hickok in a Shootout!" I couldn't find the appropriate Hallmark card.

Cary Clack's final column will appear in Sunday's S.A. Life. To leave a message call 210-250-3486 or email at cclack@express-news.net.